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Andrew Flintoff celebrates England win with family

After his legendary celebratory drinking session when the England cricket team won the Ashes in 2005, Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff decided to opt for a more low key, family-centred celebration this time round.

In 2005, he emerged the day after the victory looking worse for wear. Andrew, 31, took the ‘hair of the dog’ approach and quaffed champagne throughout the day with his team mates.

The 2009 win was a more sober affair. The dad-of-three went to bed at a respectable 1am after his last ever full test for the England team. He appeared the next morning with no traces of a night on the tiles, and took a morning stroll with wife Rachael.

“I sat with the wife and the kids, my dad who has done so much for me throughout my career. I was able to have a beer with my dad. It was very different but in a lot of ways far more enjoyable,” Andrew told the Daily Mail.

Leaving behind his career as a cricket player was an emotional decision for the sportsman, who revealed it was a “teary moment’, but clearly not one the family man regrets.

“It is actually quite a nice time for me to finish. I was looking at the lads and how happy they were celebrating with their families, then I looked at my wife and kids and I thought, ‘I’ve made the right decision here’,” he told the Telegraph.

Andrew, who is dad to Holly, 5, Corey, 3, and Rocky, 1, has decided that the school run is more important than any Test match.

“I’m probably not going to get 25,000 people chanting my name in my house, but the kids are coming to an age where they need their dad around and I am going to be there for that. Bittersweet as it is to finish Test cricket, I am excited about being at home. I am not going to get people shouting ‘Super Fred’ when I am doing the school run, but for me that is far more important than pinging a few down in a Test match.”